Black books and drink coasters
by dr100
Summary: There is a mystery, and at the centre of it, an old and faithful friend, but what is in store for both the Doctor and his companion this time, and what do the black books hold in store for either of them?
1. Chapter 1: Mystery

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 1: Mystery

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

Black sunglasses had been snatched back from the man. His identity hung in the balance, and that was no lie.

Stan Rivers was not to be tried, but just plain executed. That was "punishment enough," or so said River Song.

She smiled, and pulled the trigger.

Stan Rivers dropped the sonic screw driver, and before dying, crushed it to pieces.

"Never did you attempt to scar their name for life, but you just did!"

River spoke with no compassion, but just stepped over the body, in which she had left bloody on the mattress of her bed in Po, twin to Clom.

"Now to find _'him'_, and If I know the _'man of my life'_, he'll be….

**C-R-A…S+H!**

**"…ING…** this second!"

The TARDIS arrived on the door step of River's home in paradise, and out stepped the Doctor, complete in the long brown coat, and pointy, half spiky hair, that made River smile.

"Hello sweetie!" she said, grinning.

* * *

To be continued…


	2. Chapter 2: River

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 2: River

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

**"River?"**

The Doctor spoke as if in awe of the woman standing on the porch just in front of him.

"You came then, I thought, or rather wondered if you would indeed turn up!" she said, in her casual tone of voice.

Leading him inside her home, River sat at a desk in her study, and offered the Doctor a chair.

"Thank you," he replied, taking a seat opposite his _'friend'_.

Now River wasn't willing to offer any 'spoilers' on whether she and the Doctor had met already, but instead cut to the matter in hand. She had in front of her, placed on the desk, a suit case.

"Very business woman like," the Doctor said, opening it up, and revealing four photographs.

"What are these," he asked.

River took them in her hands.

"They're of the black books and the building opposite here! They're what I called you for, and the reason being… there's a mystery to explore."

The Doctor had listened to River for long enough to ignore the body that lie stretched out on her bed behind her.

"Who's that?" he asked, getting up to take a closer look.

He passed River, and made his way into her bedroom. On her mattress, the body of a man, dressed in black. Behind the glasses River had placed back on his face, black face paint, and strange markings.

"He broke in, threatened me with these…" and River ran and fetched the black books from her study. She ran back into her bedroom with them, and showed the Doctor.

"Blimey, the black books of the Almighty Ec Check Black, who died years ago, back in the Time war. He left behind a legend on Po, his birthplace, and others who followed him practised the evil he left in the black building in the city…"

He saw River's face, and then sighed.

"Tell me this isn't Po?" he began, slightly weary his friend would nod but fail to tell him the truth.

"Yes," she said, and the Doctor suddenly realised the Black Building had to be investigated.

* * *

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3: Investigations Commence

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 3: Investigations commence

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

Together, the Doctor and River prepared for the worst.

The Doctor pressed down the handle bar of River's front door, revealing the cold, damp, and dank air mixed in with the looming buildings, in comparison to the country bungalow like building they having just left.

"Was never really mine, or rather it was after I stole it and piloted it here…" she told the Doctor.

Shaking his head with nothing left to say to River other than what he had argued with her about already, he shrugged, and off they went.

"I take it you have a map to get us to this 'black building'," asked the Doctor, and at once thrown a map to by River, in which he juggled in his hands.

"Ah yes, there it is!"

The Doctor and River weren't far from the building, or rather landmark. It stood out among the smaller skyscrapers surrounding it. And from where River had parked her mobile home, she had obviously known where the Black Building was in connexion with herself and getting the Doctor there.

"Onwards and upwards!" River cut in, realising the Doctor seemed to be talking to himself.

"Yes, yes, if we must," said the Doctor, sounding a little frightened.

They travelled up a street, ever so reminiscent of New York, Po was. The walk did them both good, and when they arrived at the Building, it began to rain.

**"Quickly, inside now!" **ordered the Doctor, his screwdriver dealing with the lock on the black door.

There were two to three sparks until the Doctor fizzled open.

"What's the rush, it's only rain…" grumbled River, in a not so smooth voice.

"No River, there's nothing normal in it raining here. The only records I can recall are of those of which the 'Mr Black' character found himself being, well…"

"Executed?" River cut in.

"Well, in a manner of speaking River, yes! But, and this isn't easy to get your head around, but what if the legend he is has come back, or the rain is the reversal of the effect?

"Doctor, you're getting carried away with yourself," argued River.

"Maybe River," he replied. "Maybe I am, but before I shut the door after me, a drop of rain hit my hand. Look at my hand River, and tell me, why would rain then produce a cut and blood?"

* * *

To be continued…


	4. Chapter 4: Doctor Who?

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 4: Doctor Who?

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

River looked upon the Doctor's wound. She starred at the blood as it slid from his skin onto the wet ground. She looked up at him, but had no explanation for him.

There was an eerie silence, as the Doctor turned his attention to his immediate surroundings, as did River Song, who was in awe of the Black Building and what it contained.

In many ways, it reminded both the Doctor and River of their ships.

The room they had entered was like the TARDIS, bigger on the inside, containing rooms aplenty, but with nothing in any of them, except dusty boxes and possibly hidden secrets.

There were numerous pillars around also, one of which the Doctor leant on to discuss with River his thoughts on their position.

"It's quite bare, to say this was where such an evil person once operated. I'd have thought there'd have been equipment aplenty, etc, etc," the Doctor pondered aloud.

River leant on a pillar opposite him, the dust coming away from it, smudging her beige cardigan draped over her.

"Yes, I suppose so, though the information retrieved from the Black Archive does express the very nature of just what was taken from here. It was under a 'lock down', which meant equipment with the capacity to be reused to destroy were snatched up and destroyed by 'men in black'."

The Doctor looked concerned.

"You seem to know an awful lot about this place," he told her.

She winked back at him, and smiled.

"I visited there once, or was it twice?" she did wonder. "Anyway, they tried to catalogue me, but I refused."

She approached the Doctor, and fell into his arms, as if under some spell. She then kissed him, and he didn't turn away from her, but embraced it.

Pulling away from him after a moment or so, the Doctor's cheeks were rosy pink.

"And that was for…" he asked, but she hadn't heard him. Instead, she left him on his knees in the great building they wandered in. He had sunk to his knees, clutching his chest, his hearts having sped up, until his eyes suddenly shut tight, and he fell unconscious.

River Song was in a merry, almost cheery mood. She had leapt from the Doctor's lips without a care in the world, whether she knew he was dying or not.

She had wandered free from her companion, arriving in another chamber. In there, she found a familiar object, or rather mode of transport.

**"The TARDIS!"** she bellowed.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, touching the blue wood, almost stroking _'her'_.

Then, she heard some kind of clutter, as boxes left open to swallow dust fell from behind her, and still breathing, but left asleep, River guessed for some time, was a man dressed in a green velvet, slightly dusty jacket.

With short curly hair, wearing strange dark brown boots, long dusty grey trousers and half emerged by means of slumped in his jacket pocket, appeared to be a watch with strange markings, that only a Time Lord could interpret, River thought.

**"Doctor?"** she gasped, a shock that shook her entire mind and body.

As he fell free from them, he'd kicked them up behind him, and up into the air flew three black books.

River tried running in order to catch them, but they reached the ground seconds too late.

As they fell, the books sprung open, almost as if alive.

* * *

To be continued…


	5. Chapter 5: A Message kept for River Song

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 5: A message kept for River -

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

One second, the Doctor was dead. Then River found him alive and well, and it was who she found that worried her deeply, because all now puzzled her. She had found the Doctor, in his eighth incarnation, and he seemed to have either fallen asleep, or had been dumped.

She crouched beside him on the dusty floor, until he began to stir. It was when his eyes had shown life that she and he began to talk real business.

"How long have you been here?" she asked him, curiously.

"Not long, about a couple of days in actual fact. It's strange though, because I remember you…" the man said, looking up into Rivers beautiful eyes.

She winked at him, tellingly.

"I've been here on several occasions, but have never found what I've been looking for," she told him.

The Doctor smiled.

"He died then?" he asked.

"Yes!" River answered.

"So did my third incarnation, and my fourth is just about ready to drop off!" he informed the woman so very much a friend he had never before met.

"I wish you well as you leave me," he went on.

"Stay out of the rain drops," he told her.

"Why, what do the rain drops do to you?" asked River.

"They send you back in time, until you eventually die!" the Doctor said, before his head fell to the ground once more, his eyes closing, and his breathing no longer something constant in his life.

The Doctor had given River Song a warning.

"Stay out of the rain drops!" he had said.

It was clear to River that her Doctor's eighth incarnation had been struck by the rain, and most likely forced him into a dark corner, a quiet, yet secure place. But was River about to uncover something even darker than the return of all living Doctors in the galaxy?

He was now dead, and so were his tenth and third personas. His fourth was almost ready to join them...

River shivered in the cold air surrounding her, until her eyes finally turned in the direction of the all too mysterious Black Books, causing a stir not yet ready to 'play their part'.

* * *

To be continued…


	6. Chapter 6: Messages passed through time

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 6: Messages passed on through time

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

The Doctor in his fourth incarnation slipped and buckled over his multicoloured scarf, whilst making an escape from the great hall he had just been in among, at the time River had left his Tenth self to die.

"Poor old chap," he muttered, taking his hat off to his later self, and resting it on the Tenth Doctors face.

"I wonder where she's got to?" he mumbled, talking to himself as he often did when travelling without a companion.

He was speaking of River Song, her face so very familiar in his eyes, despite his Tenth incarnation having died half an hour ago.

"Still fresh in your mind is it," he said, talking to the corpse of his tenth body. "She must be some woman of the future," he went on.

Then, something fell from ahead of his gaze, a rain drop that splashed on the ground below him. His head still risen high into the air, the Doctor bent down to examine the water in which had almost hit him.

He reached out to touch it, when someone dragged him back.

"No, don't!" was the rather all too familiar voice, one of which frightened the Doctor, or rather his fourth incarnation.

"Oh it's you, what are YOU doing here, Doctor?" he asked, getting up, and turning on his winkle pickers to find a big, plump man with curly blonde hair starring back at him.

The fourth Doctor was starring at his sixth incarnation, oddly.

"Saving your life, however ungrateful you are in thanking me for doing so," the Doctor retorted, hands now firmly on his hips, head shaking furiously, and hands dashing all over the place.

"Now come on Doctor, I mean to say, I mean… if you're here, and in my head, my eighth memories are flooding back to me, would suggest I've _died…"_

The sixth Doctor starred in horror at his fourth incarnation's sudden shock of having come under fire from the puddle of water now at his feet.

The fourth Doctor fell to his knees, his body soaking wet in the puddle beneath him.

"Oh the fool!" the sixth Doctor shrieked. "He went and stood under a wet patch in the roof!"

The Doctor ran in his multicoloured outfit, almost matching his fourth incarnation's scarf, to a place of safety, when he ran into the room River Song was mourning his eighth incarnation.

She first heard his footsteps enter from behind her, and she twisted around to face a Doctor she hadn't wanted to ever come across, but sadly now had.

"You're the_ ferocious _one_,_" she said first. "You might try and bite me if I made the first move," she continued.

**"Right now Missy," **began the Doctor in his stripy yellow trousers, and pink, green, and red cloak. **"We've other troubles to deal with first, such as the Black books you have there, of which I doubt you know who they belong to!"**

River shook her head, a whirlwind of a mighty blast from the books giving her appearance an air of authority when addressing the 'moody' Doctor.

"They belong to the late Ec Check Black, Doctor!" River informed him. "And we may be in trouble as the books are starting to cook!"

**"COOK?"** the Doctor grumbled, rumbling the room he and River were standing in.

"Yes, they're bringing the Might Ec Check Black back from the dead!"

"How can you tell?" asked the Doctor.

"Oh it's easy, once you've experienced life after death, and with over 900 years of experience, it's completely easy to get your head around once you know how!"

* * *

To be continued…


	7. Chapter 7: The Arrival of Ec Check Black

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 7: The Arrival of Ec Check Black

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

The Black Books were returning something through a whirlwind of some sort of strange and all too mysterious time portal. Something now reaching out into the real world, with its hands stretching through the bubble like prison it was escaping from. Its fingers were outstretched, hoping to reach for something to hold on to. Something such as the world it once belonged to.

The Doctor, in his sixth body, stood beside River Song, the woman of whom he hadn't met yet, and held onto one another for dear life, as the creature returning from its long and vast days on 'holiday' made an attempt to 'come back'.

Papers were becoming torn from the gust of wind being projected through the Black books. As if a spell was being cast, the three books together were giving life to one single entity. And filling the air surrounding the books and River and the Doctor, lightning, if you could call it that – streaks of powerful rays slashing the surface of the Black building, spilling fire steadily growing thicker as miniature explosions rippled through the Black Building, that even now after millennia gone by, belonged to the same resident evil – Ec Check Black!

The Doctor and River were thrown off their feet, the moment the creature arrived back on his home world. Suddenly, from out of the books as if following from behind their leader, small cloaked, almost hooded figures, with machetes and other weapons in hand, as they danced around him, keeping him safe.

River landed on the Doctor, and pulling herself free from him, and back onto her feet, she took out her blaster, aiming it at the creature just ahead of her, and firing at it.

The blast had no impact on the creature, but just alerted it to them.

**"Who are you, and why are you within the perimeters of my domain?" **the creature asked, not in a kind tone of voice.

The Doctor quickly got to his feet, and stood at River's side.

_"Question time this isn't," _he called after the beast of which had risen from the books of legend.

"Tell us why you've returned, and then River... tell me why you called on me to investigate this place with you in the first place…"

Then River turned from the creature from the Black Books, to the Sixth Doctor in horror.

**"What?" **she asked, impolitely.

_**"Pardon**_, I think is the preferred word I'm looking for from you River, and yes, my other selves are still very much in touch with me, feeding information to me directly from their dying minds. As long as I'm still living, I can channel their thoughts through and through. You didn't call me here in my Tenth incarnation to have a good old chinwag did you? No, you called me here regarding a particular something to do with him, Mr Black, the sinister weirdo, of whom has something you want, or rather you're after."

River and the Doctor exchanged moody glances at one another, before turning their attention back to the mysterious creature standing before them, it's minions weapons trained on them both.

**"You scheme, you plot, and you challenge my very presence here! Kill them at once!" **it ordered, and without a moments thought, it's minions obeyed without question.

* * *

To be continued…


	8. Chapter 8: Future Events Undone

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 8: Future Events, not yet past tense

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

The hooded figures charged towards River and the Doctor, but unlike their friend, they were all too mortal to challenge the gun blasts fired at them.

**"NO you fools… take cover!"** shrieked Black, through his own black cape, and twisted horns stretching into the air from beyond slits in his snipped face cloth.

River forced the Doctor back down the corridor they had before entered via, as she continued to take out their enemies.

The last of the machete men fell to the ground, having been successfully dealt with.

Black growled in sheer disbelief, angered by River and the Doctor's presence.

Together, River and the Doctor were safe. They had entered some lift, an elevator, taking them down further into the Black Building. Not quite sure where they were heading, the Doctor had simply been following River, and she having saved him from the ninja like followers of Ec Check Black was good enough for him, almost.

"So, tell me why you brought me here then River, I'm listening," said the Doctor, hands on his stripy bee like trousers, hair in its own time vortex.

"Honestly Doctor," River said, grinning at him as if the Doctor had something too funny. In fact he had, or at least in River's eyes.

"We've let loose a crazed Killer, an all too evil entity I have no doubt we deal with nonetheless, but still, you ask me impossibly questions…" she replied, leaving the Doctor dumbstruck.

"River, we're safe for the moment aren't we, and impossible questions?" he said, sounding as if he had spoken out of turn.

"Yes, spoilers, for your future incarnation, when he intends on arriving, which if I know him, he won't!"

The Doctor fixed River Song a stare, before the elevators doors reeled back, revealing six Doctors, standing in the door way, all hands firmly resting on their hips, except the seventh Doctor, who leant on his umbrella

"Tell us the worst Susan hm," said the first Doctor, turning to look down at River Song, who simply smiled and shook her head. She turned to the small-ish Doctor in the chequered trousers and clutching the umbrella.

"I'm not who he thinks I am," River said, in all but a whisper.

"Never mind him," replied the second Doctor, starring up at the grey haired fellow standing tall and proud.

"He gets it wrong on occasion."

The sixth Doctor and River strode out of the lift, to greet the other fellows, there to join forces and end the story before it went to press, 100,000 years in the future.

* * *

"Three books have just come in Frank, from a publishers I've never heard of before," said Michael, fetching them in his arms, landing them on Frank's desk.

Frank and Michael worked at West ferry Printers in London. It was on a bright sunny day that three books arrived with nothing in them, nothing as of yet.

Frank was seated at his desk, marking envelopes and sending them away to various companies throughout the country, when Michael had left him with three dusty black 'things' that read 'To be stamped, and approved, via the correct data inserted', and attached to each of them was a small leaflet of what to be published within each of them.

Frank read a single paragraph, then put it down, taking the words in.

_"The Doctors arrived, and I clawed from out of the Time Vortex in a breeze so fulfilling…"_

Frank gave that first line some thought, and then continued.

_"My followers joined me in returning alongside me, and together we eliminated the Doctors who did not stand a single chance."_

Frank paused, and closed the leaflet, starring at the books that read the _**'Return of Ec Check Black'**_. A chill shot down Franks back.

His telephone rang, and seated comfortably in his office, he answered it and again, he felt stone cold when he heard the words – "This is the Doctor…"

* * *

To be continued…


	9. Chapter 9: Working Together

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 9: Working together - for once...

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

_His telephone rang, and seated comfortably in his office, he answered it and again, he felt stone cold when he heard the words – "This is the Doctor…"_

**"Doctor… not the Doctor?"** questioned Frank, frightfully in awe of someone calling him from millennia back.

"Yes, now just who've I gotten hold of here? Is this the printers?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes, yes, yes it is," Frank stuttered.

**"Come on man, one yes will do!"** stated the ninth Doctor, sounding a little impatient.

"Give me that," argued the fifth Doctor, snatching the phone from his future self.

"Is this a Mr Frank Goddard, who in two days will have published three Black Books, or hang on, have you at least received them yet?" asked the Doctor.

Frank nodded, but then realised the Doctor's fighting to speak with him weren't in the same room as him, despite their frustrations coming across over the telephone line.

"Yes I have Doctor, why…" and then Frank cut off, hearing the Doctors yell – "Refuse to publish them, that way you Frank, will save the Earth from any future atrocity! By means of refusal, Earth doesn't get paid a visit by a copy of the real Ec Check Black we're fighting at present!"

Frank picked up the empty books in his hands. He looked at them curiously, then turned to the recycling bin, and threw them inside.

"Done deal," he said, but still slightly wary of just what was going on, the events taking place, between him having a conversation with a historic gentleman, of which Frank reckoned would make a wonderful story.

The second Doctor joined the conversation, adding – "That's very kind of you Frank, now toodles…" and at once, the telephone line went dead.

The Doctors back on Po were huddled close together, or at least had been when making the all important call. River was sat in the middle of them, and together they planned a means of putting an end to future crimes they had no doubt Black would commit in his present being, him being back on his home world, where atrocities long ago too place, and where others would begin again, under his rule.

"Which of us knew of Black returning to Earth in the future?" asked the fifth Doctor, worriedly.

**"Uh hm, I did dear fellow," **the first Doctor piped up.

"How did events on Earth end?" asked the ninth Doctor, sounding worried himself, wondering if he and the others had got the telephone call right at all.

"Just as events played out _misery_," the first said to the ninth, in a rowdy tone of voice.

"Calm down gentlemen," insisted the second Doctor, getting to his feet, searching his pockets for his recorder.

"Now where did I put it?" he grumbled.

"We've no time for that now Doctor," said the seventh, pulling a device free from above his hat. It was small and metallic, with bits loose, but of which the Doctor had already started to tighten.

"Exactly Doctor," said River, leaning on the Seventh Doctor's shoulder.

"Just what is that you have there?" she asked him.

"Well, it's a dimension jumper, which enables one to hop from time zones across the universe. Now, I've an idea, which may just work…"

"And that is," the sixth Doctor butted in.

"Yes, no secrets Doctor hm," mused the first Doctor, the second Doctor leaning on his walking stick, the fifth Doctor looking grim and stern as ever.

"yes, yes, alright," said the seventh Doctor, fetching screws from his other pockets.

"Should we concentrate the one dimension Black materialised from, and shut it down, destroy this mechanism, we've locked him away under the 'modern time lock'."

"But we'd need to find just where Black came from…" River cut in.

"Not necessarily," said the fifth Doctor, a finger to his lips, patting it softly.

"Black died, and so could only have come back from the dead. But the time zone he died in was this one. We've arrived in his future, therefore the link will be most effective," the second Doctor finished for him.

The Doctor's were ready to confront Black, but River was hiding something all too necessary to be kept from all of them. It would soon be spoken of, she had no fear of that.

* * *

To be continued…


	10. Chapter 10: Defeating Black

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 10: Defeating Black

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

_In his domain, Ec Check Black lurked living and dead at once. He had found a way to come back. He had the Carrionites to thank for that. They had successfully put a spell on the Black Books that they took with them from the Black Building. The Black building they had fallen under the might of, thanks to traps put together by the followers of Black and his great evil. _

Now, whilst he had returned, he was putting his uses to overseeing his Kingdom. Still the Black Building was functional, with the flames from the torn pages now having died down, and the Black Books still open at the same page as before. The vortex swirled within, and the Carrionites cackling could be heard mocking Black, knowing he would fall foul to the Doctors on their way up to pay him a visit.

On a wide screen, showing Black Po in all its futuristic glory, he saw the impact his base had on the rest of those living within reach of him. Po was a wonderful paradise, but his being back there had meant the world had turned to sludge, to dirt worth little to him, as he requiring followers and subjects, was something he knew would be difficult to achieve.

Those of who had followed him to hell were now dead, and that was when Black's thoughts switched of, as he turned to face the elevator, at the end of the great hall in which he was lurking in.

The doors shot back, and out stepped Six Time Lords, and River Song.

"Hello _sweetie_," she mocked, as they together marched towards their target.

In light of how he felt looking at his kingdom, his home world, the planet he had returned to, Black was full of anger and disappointment, fear as well as sickness, in terms as health.

"You've come to kill me?" he asked. He seemed so down on his luck, knowing the odds were against him.

"We know you're immortal now. The spell your friends cast upon you have given you life through death, whichever way you die."

**"So you cannot kill me!"** Black raged, laughing hard and without a doubt the Doctors could stop him now.

"Except, you've overlooked something Black… you can't die, but that doesn't stop us from sending you back into the Time Vortex, back to death, and sealing your time off. You'll still live throughout that period, but…"

**"But you can't!"** Black replied. **"You haven't the power!"**

The Doctors turned to one another, then looked back at Black.

"There are six of us Black, not just the one this time, and we've worked out just how to put an end to you surviving all you went through when really, we can turn back time and see to it you never escape, ever again!"

Black's eyes were torn in two, his dreams shattered. Dreams of rising up, taking the universe by force were over.

**"Then I embrace your decision Doctors, but let it be known should I escape in the future, you will be the first to die!"**

"Then let it be known," said the Doctor, the seventh activating his device, and asking his other selves, not forgetting River, to stand well back.

At once, the book began to reel in Black, his nails clawing and snapping to tiny pieces he being unable to hang on to the real world, before he slipped into the book he fell out of, which a second later closed.

Thinking it was over, the Doctors congratulated themselves, when suddenly… without warning, they disappeared, River being left with just one Doctor in all of their places.

_**"Hello again!" **_said the Tenth Doctor, hands in pockets, hair spiky, he seeming groovy, his being there surprising River Song completely.

"What's happened? Where are all the others?" she asked him.

"Time was reversed, lucky my seventh incarnation was on hand to put things back to working order. They're all back in their own time zones, fortunately, too much of a cleaning up job had we all stayed to say goodbye. Now, time I was off eh…" and he gave the confused River Song a mighty hug.

Pulling free from her, the tenth Doctor strolled off to greet his TARDIS just down the great hall. Ready to climb aboard, he quickly turned back to face River, and shouted.

"Those spoilers are my top priority next time, should we ever meet again River!" he called after her.

"Oh yes, I look forward to it Doctor, I hope we get the opportunity again!" and activating Po Ship 3000, her ship was ready to blast off, with the tenth Doctor quickly aboard his TARDIS, to make his own journey into the universe.


	11. Chapter 11: A Lead

Doctor Who

Black books and drink coasters.

Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Chapter 11: A Lead

By Nathan Mullins

* * *

The TARDIS hummed as the Doctor climbed aboard, and as if knowing what he might do next, she programmed her own flight coordinates, dematerialising before the Doctor had worked out just what was going on.

**"WHAT?"** he yelled.

"Just **WHAT?" **he continued.

He checked the scanner on the console, and on it, in nine separate frames, nine Doctors.

"So you're the _new figure _in the cosmos?" huffed the first Doctor, smiling away, pleased with the result.

"Indeed I am," said the tenth Doctor, running a hand through his spiky hair.

"Do you play an instrument old fellow?" asked the second Doctor, happily showing the tenth his recorder on his scanner.

"Afraid not," replied the tenth, taking off his long brown coat, setting aside.

"Good show Doctor," said the third. "We Time Lords shouldn't bother with musical instruments, unless we've got to put a stop to some bad guy with one!"

"Now, now!" hissed the second Doctor, getting stroppy with the third.

"Oh hello there Doctor!" bellowed the fourth Doctor, too busy messing around with his yoyo to speak directly to his elder.

"Hello Doctor, tell me," began the tenth. "All of you, which of you summoned the TARDIS to take me to River Island? I mean really? River Island? Can only belong to River Song, hm! Oh forgive me Doctor; I'm beginning to sound a little like you!"

The tenth Doctor apologised to the first, and being in his nature, he dismissed it.

"Perhaps River will reveal her secrets," said the seventh Doctor, before the ninth Doctor cut in to say, you're doing fantastic, but you're allowing River to take the lead. Find out just what she knows, and if she can be trusted!"

And so the TARDIS zoomed through the space, time vortex, to River Island, in the River Nebula, in the ocean district in deep space.

There, River was waiting for him, and the Doctor's other selves wished him all the very best, on his next all important adventure!

* * *

To be continued…


End file.
